It is amazing, the frequency by which Fox News is able to pluck an obscure, irrelevant African American from anonymity to come on their show just to tear into another prominent Black man who does not share the station’s philosophy or values. Otherwise, African American appearances on the network are almost like UFO sightings.
Before, Fox used Stacey Dash to rip into Obama or any other Black person – and never for anything else – until she was relegated to the trash heap. Today, Kevin Jackson is Fox’s flavor of the month.
Jackson, the best-selling author of Race Pimp (what else?) said that not only is former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick a disgrace to the late, legendary Muhammad Ali, he also added with a straight face that Kaepernick is giving money to terrorists.
Jackson was responding to the fact that Kaepernick was given the 2017 Sports Illustrated “Muhammad Ali Legacy Award” on Thursday for what he has done in the name of social justice. “Fox & Friends” were predictably outraged at the distinction.
“They just turned Muhammad Ali’s Legacy Award into toilet paper,” Kevin Jackson said on “Fox & Friends.”
“Look, Kaepernick is no Ali,” he went on. “And the idea that the left continue to want to sell this lie to America, that this man stands for something that supposedly is happening in this country that’s not, just shows you that the left will never give up on this narrative.”
Co-host Brian Kilmeade added, “Well, let’s talk about the differences. Muhammad Ali gets told you better get drafted — you are drafted, go. And he says I’m not. It’s against my religious beliefs, I won’t do it, so he is out. They strip him of his heavyweight title, which is bizarre in retrospect. And for three and a half years, he has absolutely no money.”
The two Fox personalities conveniently overlook the fact that Fox would have despised the likes of Ali, who threw his Olympic gold medal away, joined the Nation of Islam and was a close friend of Malcolm X. Ali went from a hero to villain overnight when he refused induction into the military during the Vietnam War, saying, “No Viet Cong ever called me n—-.” He was maligned and vilified nationwide, even by some Blacks, was imprisoned briefly and was stripped of his ability to earn a living.
Kaepernick has also been ostracized and stripped of his ability to earn future paychecks in the sport he loves. No sport or industry will touch him as he is viewed as nuclear waste.
“Colin Kaepernick has already made a zillion dollars where there wasn’t that much money in sports back then anyway,” he added. “And then he walked away from that contract in 2016. He would have been still on that roster. They would have had to cut him or he would have had payout.”
The facts didn’t play into anything said on “Fox & Friends,” and Jackson continued with the mutual massage session with the host of the show by saying, “You are exactly right. So Colin Kaepernick chose his own fate and there are many other bad comparisons.”
To imply that Kaepernick simply “walked away” from the San Francisco 49ers is blatantly false. The 49ers’ general manager said that Kaepernick would have been let go if he hadn’t opted out of the contract.
Jackson went even farther with his rhetoric claiming, “Colin Kaepernick gives money to terrorists. So, look at the people he has donated money to, these are radicals in many cases. Very anti-American, ethno-centrically racist black organizations.”
Kaepernick said he would donate $1M over the course of a year as well as revenue from his jersey sales from 2016 to a multitude of organizations that help to support oppressed communities.
Since then, he has donated money to a charter school in Harlem, the Coalition for the Homeless, an organization that helps families who are victims of violent crimes, summer camp for Baltimore high-school students, Meals on Wheels, Somalia famine relief, assistance for Black veterans, the Center for Reproductive Rights, as well as many other social justice and civil rights organizations.
It is unclear which of those Jackson thinks are terrorist-affiliated.
Perhaps he is referencing Kaepernick’s close ties with the non-violent group Black Lives Matter which is by no stretch a terrorist organization.
“Muhammad Ali got a raw deal. Colin Kaepernick did not get a raw deal,” Jackson concluded.
